Pages

Monday, January 19, 2009

Monday Poetry Stretch - Oulipo

The OULIPO is a form that was created in 1960 by a writer and mathematician. It is designed to examine verse written under strict constraints, of which there are many. Here are just a few that look interesting.

S+7: The writer takes a poem already in existence and substitutes each of the poem’s substantive nouns with the noun appearing seven nouns away in the dictionary. This can also be used with verbs.

Snowball: A poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer. This form could also start with one word with each line growing by one word.

Lipogram: Writing that excludes one or more letters.

You can read more about this form at Wikipedia and Poets.org. The official site is here, but alas, I do not read French. (However, the Google language tools are somewhat helpful.)

Here's the OULIPO I wrote in 2007.

Ode to a GymnastYes,onceagain.Aching,bending,reaching,repeating,perfection!

So, do you want to play? What kind of OULIPO will you write? Leave a comment about your poem and what constraint form you used, and I'll post the results later this week.

Blogs I Read

Below you will find links to some of the many blogs I enjoy reading. They are broken down into categories and include only the FIVE MOST RECENT POSTS. You will find blogs written by teachers, librarians, homeschoolers, parents, authors, illustrators and many other folks who share a love for children's literature. Enjoy!